Chapter 6

Network writing is defined as "electronic literature created for and published on the Internet" (Rettburg 152). The characteristics of network writing include having a reader visit different web pages in order to read the full story, examine the Internet as a whole, and a way for collaboration. Rettburg views the Internet as a "fully multimodal medium" (152), that contains various elements of images, sound, and animations. In Rettburg's section "Antecedents to network writing" he highlights N. Katherine Hayles Writing Machines which coined the term "technotext". Technotext is a term to describe "a work of writing that interrogates the inscription technology used to product it (155). Network writing also involves forms of collective writing and in the UK the Mass-Observation movement was started to create an assembly of "an anthropology of ourselves" (157). The Mass-Observation movement contained a collection of writings from multiple members ranging from questionnaires to diaries. Rettburg highlights various forms of network writing including fictional blogs, homepage fictions, and email novels. Fictional blogs are a form of network writing that focuses on the personal writings of a writer. Fictional blogs use various methods and can be used as fictional or hoaxes. Rettburg discusses the Kaycee Nicole blog which was about "her fictional struggle fighting leukemia" (169). Homepage fictions primarily use HTML and combines fiction writing with coding. Some examples include The Fall of the Site of Marsha which uses a homepage to tell the story of various characters. Email novels was used during the 1990s and early 2000s. The first major literary work that used email novels was Rob Wittig's Blue Company which is about a copywriter sent to the past.

The literary work I focused on was Rob Wittig's Blue Company. When I read the first letter it was similar to hypertext fiction because the story did not follow the traditional story format. The text is similar to a email because of the short sentences and brief statements. The format of the homepage has the reader read from the bottom of page and work their way to the top. Each section also resembles an email because the header was similar to the subject line on a email.
http://www.robwit.net/bluecompany2002/

Tim W